


A Poem For You

by orphan_account



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Doesn't it make sense though?, Fluff, Johnny liking poetry is a headcanon, Johnny's snarky and witty, M/M, There's no purpose to this existing and there's no porn to back up the lack of plot, This is what happens at 2am, What is my description?, just fluff, nothing other than fluff, what even is this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22015617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Johnny likes poetry, he likes reading it and writing it. Dally likes listening to him read it.
Relationships: Johnny Cade/Dallas Winston
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	A Poem For You

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so headcanon time, Johnny likes poetry? But he also likes writing it. He thinks that it's the English language simplified, and Ponyboy tells him it isn't and that it's harder, which Johnny doesn't get because if it was harder then why does he understand it? Also, Dally is the only person Johnny trusts with his poems, Pony knows about them but he's never read them.

They're sitting in a cramped room at Buck’s place. It's fairly small in there, being filled to the brim with clothes and towels and magazines. The only available room for them to rest is the thin path that leads to the empty bathroom, and the cleared space at the front of the bed. Dallas sits there while Johnny is right above him, with his legs acting like a pillow for the older boy’s back.

They're smoking, as they usually do when they spend time together, passing a cigarette between each other’s lips and fingers. When Johnny takes the weed from Dally’s hand, he puts it out in the ashtray next to him.

Dally looks up at him with a bit of playful annoyance, “Why’d you do that?”

Johnny smiles at him and presses a kiss to his forehead. “You’ve had enough.”

A laugh escapes Dally’s throat as his hands reach up to tangle in Johnny’s thick hair. “So what? You want some attention now?”

“Shut up.” Johnny shakes his head and then buries it in the crook of Dallas’s shoulder. “Let’s do something, you’re boring.”

“Well, I can’t fix that.” Dally’s lip twitches into a smirk. “But I have a few ideas, you wanna try ‘em out?”

“I hate you,” Johnny mumbles into his skin before sitting up and reaching into his jacket’s pocket, he pulls out a small piece of paper that Dallas doesn’t immediately notice.

“Aw, I hate you too, baby-”

Johnny interrupts him suddenly, “I wrote another poem.”

“Oh. That’s great,” Dallas says. He settles himself more comfortable in the gap between Johnny’s legs, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Well then, let’s hear it.”

Johnny doesn’t begin to read, Dally can hear his breath turn a bit shaky and the sound of his tongue hitting his lips. “I wrote it for you.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t know what else to say. Like, “congratulations” maybe? Or “thanks”? He eases the stiffness in his back. “Um, well, read it, then.”

The bed above him creaks as Johnny shifts himself. He leans his weight over Dally’s shoulders, with his chin resting on Dally’s head, and he places the paper just in front of the older boy’s vision. Dallas can already make out a few scribbled words, but he decides to wait until Johnny reads them.

“Alright,” Johnny says. Dallas has noticed that his voice changes a little when he reads his poetry, it’s a bit huskier. Kind of like a narrator in a movie, but softer and more gentle. And he’s more confident than he usually is.

“His hair is white  
Just like his smile  
Just like his skin  
And his lips feel right  
Though it sounds vile  
Though it’s called sin  
And though love  
Is a mere phrase  
He’d never let me use  
It’s only love  
That I can say  
To express what’s my truth”

Johnny moves his head so that he’s looking at Dally, who now seems contemplative, maybe even speechless, it makes Johnny more nervous than he’d like to admit. He took a chance when he wrote the poem, he took an even bigger chance when he wrote the word ‘love’, and he took an even bigger chance when he decided to read it to his boyfriend. He doesn’t know where they stand, emotionally. He’d like to hope that they’ve gotten past the fear of feeling, even though he’s unsure.

A nervous smile plays at his rosy lips as he waits for Dally to respond. “Did you like it?”

“Wow, it’s, uh, really beautiful, Johnnycakes.” Dallas licks his lips, “But-”

Johnny frowns. “But what?”

Dallas turns, and now they’re facing each other. “But my hair’s not white. It’s _really really blonde_. So you’re wrong.”

Johnny releases a strained breath and rolls his eyes, he ruffles Dally’s hair with his free hand. “It looks white at night-time, you idiot.”

“Whatever,” Dally says as Johnny lays his head on his shoulder.

“You know what?” Johnny asks, seeing how the orange sunlight that pierces through the window catches Dally’s hair. “It looks kind of golden during the sunset, that’s real pretty.” He smiles. “Sounds like another poem.”

“You are so full of shit!” Dally says, pinching Johnny’s leg playfully. He recoils and then hits Dally on his arm, and suddenly they find themselves in a mini-wrestling match. But they don’t dare to get up from where they sit, especially since Johnny squeezes his legs around Dally’s neck in an effort to make him stay put, to the point where he almost chokes him. Eventually, and in a surprising turn of events, Dally relents and backs away from the fight.

He’s glad though, it seems to make Johnny happy.

“I don’t deserve someone like you, you know that?” Dally says, as if he’s incapable of filtering his vocal thoughts.

Johnny groans. “You say that all the time!”

“But it’s true,” he says. “I don’t deserve someone like you. Someone who’s special, and talented, and can write poems-”

“Anyone can write a poem-”

“Anyone can not write a poem-”

“I’m not even that good at it-”

“You’re amazing. Like I said, you’re talented, you’re smart, you’re special-”

“Dal,” Johnny interrupts. “I don’t know anyone smarter or more special or more talented than you.” Then he smirks and rolls his shoulders. “Except maybe Ponyboy.”

“That’s it!” Dallas says before he rises up, trapping a flailing Johnny on his shoulders. Despite his boyfriend’s laughing protests, he doesn’t let him down. He just dances around the room, and once Johnny begins to slip off of his back, Dallas playfully tosses him onto the bed and collapses on top of him.

“You’re gonna give me a concussion, you dick!” Johnny exclaims, trying to squirm out of Dally’s arms.

Dally looks down at him with a wide grin. “Can Ponyboy do that, huh?”

“Oh, wow,” Johnny says, laughing. “Ponyboy?”

“Can he-” Dally leans down and kisses one of Johnny’s most ticklish areas, the boy beneath him squeals. “-fuck you like I do?”

“Oh my God!” Johnny cackles. “You’re so romantic!”

Dally shrugs. “I just wanna know, that’s all.”

Johnny’s eyes soften but his smile becomes more devilish. “Are you actually jealous of him, Dal?”

Dally laughs. “Of course I’m not. I love the kid but have you seen him? He can’t take nothin’ away from me-”

Johnny’s eyebrow raise. “Oh? Away from you?”

Dally buries his face in the crook of Johnny’s neck, kissing the sensitive skin there. “You know what I mean. I would never say that you’re my property, you’re your own person, you don’t belong to me, you can exist without me-”

“You’re so full of shit, Dal!”

“Course I am,” Dally says. “I gotta find a way to keep up with you.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “‘Keep up with me’, he says. Like you can’t write a poem, anyone can write a fricken’ poem.”

“I can’t, maybe Ponyboy can-”

“Shut up!”

“-but I _can not_.” 

Johnny sits up and Dally follows suit, there’s a strange look in his and he just shrugs. “Just try it, though.”

“What?”

“Dal, it’s easy. Try it.”

He laughs, but for some vague reason he finds himself intrigued by the idea. So, he decides to play along and starts to think up some rhymes. “Um, I guess, uh-”

And like a lightbulb ignites over his pale hair, Dally reaches somewhere beyond the bed and picks up Johnny’s discarded poem. “Alright, let’s see. His hair is… black. Just like his… smile? Just like his _skin_?!”

Dally bursts into laughter and so does Johnny, rolling his eyes again-which is a habit he’s picked up, spending so much time around the idiot. “Dally, you have to be original.”

“Hey, give me a second! I have an idea, give me a second.” He thinks for a bit more and purses his lips. “Alright, okay. His _cheeks_ are pink-”

“Still not original-”

“Ssh, just like his,” Dally smirks, “dick.”

“Oh… my _God_.”

“Just like his thighs.” Dally’s smile widens with every word. “And I get horny every time I look into his eyes.”

“My Romeo,” Johnny says.

“And even though love,” Dallas continues, “is something I’d never allow myself to say, it’s what I feel when I’m with him. Every single day.”

Johnny’s silent after hearing his words, for a lot longer than Dallas hopes for. What he hopes Johnny can’t see is the inner turmoil going through his mind. He’s still unsure whether Johnny was using flowery language in his poem, or if there was a hidden confession somewhere, he’s too scared to blatantly confess himself. But there was a risk he took when he opened his mouth, one he finds himself feeling the nervous effects of. 

“So, what do you think?” He asks.

Johnny smiles, almost tenderly. “You’re really horny. You should read some Hart Crane or Ernest Dawson or Robert Frost, you’d like them.”

Dally reaches out to play with a curl by Johnny’s eye. “So, you liked it?”

Johnny bites his lip and scrunches his nose. “Actually, not really.”

“What?”

“Well,” Johnny begins counting off his fingers, “You took my rhymes, my patterns, my theme, my rhythm-”

“You piece of shit!” Dally says, inching closer to the giggling boy in front of him, so close that their lips almost brush against each other. “You know I’m a dropout and I don’t know what any of that means.”

Johnny laughs and gently pecks the tip of Dally’s nose. “I don’t deserve someone like you, you know that?”

“Someone like me?” Dally asks, there’s a hint of genuinity behind his playful words. An emotionally bridge that the two have yet to cross.

“Someone. So. Stupid.”

“Alright, that’s it!”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been balancing original writing, beta reading, writing a new Jally story, and reading To Kill a Mockingbird for my school reading unsuccessfully. So, instead of doing work and chores and getting caught up on school I did this. Does anyone have any other one-shot recommendations or should I stop doing these?


End file.
